I recently returned from keynoting at the Hawaii state home school conference where my entire family (including my beloved mother) enjoyed the hospitality of one of the most delightful state home school boards in America. Under the able leadership of the Alejado family, this group has brought a tremendous message of hope and family renewal to the Aloha State. Mahalo to these God-blessed servants of Christ. (After the conference I went out with one of the state leaders and enjoyed a morning of surfing. Later that day I had the joy of teaching my son Joshua to ride his first wave on a long board. We surfed in a location populated by older Hawaiian men, aged sixty and older. I was amazed to watch them, many of whom were large and pot-bellied, as they caught the waves with seeming effortlessness.)

During our visit to Oahu, my family and I studied and became intrigued with the remarkable story of Princess Ka’iulani, the Christian Hawaiian princess whose ancestry was linked to the heathen Kamehameha ruling family of past centuries, and the Reformed Christian tradition of the Scots, through her mother and father respectively. As a young girl, she benefited from a wonderful home education and even sat at the feet of her good friend Robert Louis Stevenson during his visits to the island. As an adult, she would wow the West with her Christian orthodoxy, poise and dignity, fluency in five languages, and courageous spirit. That spirit was proved when Hawaii was assaulted by American businessmen in the late 1890s. These merchants illegally besieged the royal Hawaiian palace and deposed the monarchy to pave the way for American annexation. The fate of the country rested with the crown princess. When news of her arrival in America to plead the cause of her nation hit the press, she was at first labeled a barbarian princess. But Ka’iulani would put her critics to shame with her beauty, grace, poise, erudition, and distinctively Christian message. Speaking to American legislators, she declared:

“Seventy years ago Christian America sent over Christian men and women to give religion and civilization to Hawaii. Today three of the sons of those missionaries are at your capitol asking you to undo their father’s work.... Today, I a poor, weak girl, with not one of my people near me and all these statesmen against me, have the strength to stand up for the rights of my people. Even now I can hear their wail in my heart, and it gives me strength and I am strong ... strong in the faith of God, strong in the knowledge that I am right, strong in the strength of seventy million people who in this free land will hear my cry...”

Ka’iulani, the crown princess of Hawaii, was seventeen when she confronted the American people, their legislators and leaders, with the Gospel and the Golden Rule. She died at age twenty-three. All of Hawaii mourned.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: For more on this remarkable Christian daughter of destiny, you might consider: Princess Ka’iulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People, by Sharon Linnea, published by Eerdmans. 1999. This book will be available through Vision Forum beginning May 15, 2003.